Ceasefire
by QueenoftheDarned
Summary: On Christmas Eve, 1914, Aziraphale and Crowley find one another on the Western Front. War is hell, but even in the darkest places there is a tiny sliver of hope.


**Ceasefire**

When the thunder of artillery fire died, all that was left was silence.

A deep, ringing silence, as if the noise was a physical object whose absence left a hole in the world. Was it any wonder, then, that the German soldiers in their trenches filled in the quiet with the never-ending chorus of _ Deutschland Über Alles? _Faint snatches of the song reached Aziraphale's ears as he slipped quietly through the darkened trench that housed the 18th Infantry Brigade. Groans followed, from men who huddled in whatever spaces they could find in the frozen trench walls.

"Almost makes you long for the cannons," a man growled in a heavy Yorkshire accent, breath puffing into the frigid air. Aziraphale didn't answer - his accent would give him away immediately as an outsider.

He kept his head down and carried on down the line as quickly as he could without drawing too much attention. No easy feat in such a cramped space, but he was extremely good at not being noticed (he'd had nearly six thousand years of practice). Even so, it was only a matter of time before some officer got tired of waiting and ordered his battalion over the top. Aziraphale didn't fancy getting caught in a skirmish. He was carrying a rifle, but he didn't think he could quite bring himself to shoot an eighteen-year-old with it. He was an ancient celestial being, after all. It didn't seem quite _ fair. _

He was somewhere outside of Ypres, but one couldn't be entirely sure. The war had cut a ragged swathe through the countryside, riddling it with miles upon miles of ugly scars that rendered it unrecognisable. Aziraphale had been here less than a day, and he already longed for his little book shop in Soho.

Michael's orders had been simple; "_Where there's war, there are agents of Hell. Do not suffer them to live." _ What Michael _ hadn't _said could have filled volumes, but Aziraphale was trying not to think about that.

He paused as he passed a group of Scotsmen huddled against a ladder - one of them was pressed flat against the lip of the trench, squinting through a pair of binoculars in the direction of the German line.

"What're they _ duin'_?"

"I dinnae," said the man on the ladder, "but there's a lot o' wee lights. Like Christmas lights." The others exchanged glances.

"_Christmas _lights?"

"Well, it _ is _Christmas eve."

"Shite, are they getting ready to charge us?" One of the younger men took a step back, narrowly avoiding stepping on Aziraphale's foot. He didn't even look round. "Is that what all the singing's aboot?"

"Naw, don' be daft. Why would they give us a warning?"

"The lights are spreadin' doon the line!"

"Awrite, git doon before one o' them sharpshooters takes yer haid off." Boots shuffled for purchase on the icy ground as the soldiers let their friend down from his perch. Aziraphale hardly noticed.

"Christmas eve…" he said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else, but it was enough for one of the men to look around with surprise, noticing him for the first time.

"Can a help ye?" A spark of confusion flickered across his face as he looked the angel up and down. "Yer nae from the Scots Guard. What're you duin' here?" Aziraphale gave a start when he realised the soldiers were all staring at him.

"Oh, I'm… I'm just…" he glanced around, and his eyes fell on a young man - barely out of his teens - napping in a hollow in the wall, a set of bagpipes tucked in the crook of his arm to keep them out of the dirt. "I wondered if you'd be interested in helping me spread a little Christmas cheer. Extend some… goodwill to our neighbours over there." He gave them his best cherubic smile, but it didn't have quite the effect he'd hoped for.

"_Christmas cheer?" _ snapped one of the older men, a tall fellow with several days' worth of stubble and hollow eyes. "Because o' _ them_, we're stuck in a dank hole in the middle of _ fuckin' _Belgium, or haven't ye noticed? D'ye want us tae hold hands wi' them too?"

"Shut yer geggy, Gordon," said one of the others, not entirely unkindly. He gently but firmly clasped Gordon's shoulder and pulled him away. "Dinnae mind him. He's missing his wee girl's first Christmas."

"Honestly, anything is better than waiting all night to get shelled," said a fair-haired man wrapped in a blanket, to a chorus of agreement from his companions. "What's yer idea?"

Aziraphale hadn't actually _ had _an idea, more the ghostly beginnings of one, but as he steepled his fingers he found it began to take shape.

"We'll need your piper," he said, turning back to the sleeping boy. At least, he _ hoped _he was asleep - he hadn't looked very closely.

One of the soldiers stepped forward. "Oh, aye, that's Dougie. He cannae hear you, once he's out, he's dead tae the world." He leaned over and shouted the lad's name, shaking his shoulder until he stirred and groggily sat up.

Looking more than a little taken aback to see his whole battalion and one stranger all staring at him, Dougie demanded something in a thick accent that Aziraphale didn't try to decipher. (He'd had over six hundred years to familiarise himself with the Scots accent, but for some reason it remained a mystery to him.) Luckily, the others understood perfectly, and between them they explained his idea to the bewildered man.

Dougie grumbled something rude-sounding under his breath, but got to his feet and tucked his pipes under his arm anyway. He looked expectantly at Aziraphale and rattled off another incomprehensible question. When all he got in return was a blank stare, he rolled his eyes.

"Er, what did he say?" Aziraphale muttered to the closest soldier.

"He said, '_Have ye got any requests_?'"

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Aziraphale had no way of knowing, but just over a hundred metres away, across no man's land, sat an extremely unhappy demon. Crowley was freezing, dirty, and _ bored. _ So very bored _ . _ The constant, terrifying prospect of being discorporated by bullet, shrapnel or bayonet had abated, but the chaos had been replaced by an interminable wait for something - _ anything _\- to happen. Just because he could theoretically live forever didn't mean he couldn't lose his mind.

To make matters worse, he hadn't exactly volunteered for this assignment. In fact, he was pretty sure Ligur had sent him here out of spite.

_ "Why d'you need _ me _ there?" _ he'd protested. _ "They're doing a fine job of slaughtering each other without our help. Let War sort it all out."  
_

_ "It's a war built on greed, Crowley," _ Ligur had growled. _ "Greed and pride. It should be _ ours_. Now get up there and do your damned job!" _

_ Damned _ job was about right, thought Crowley bitterly, breathing flames into his cupped hands when no one was looking. Earlier, he'd managed to distract the other soldiers from asking about his glasses with the miraculous appearance of a bottle of _ schnapps. _Of course, now he was surrounded by idiots who were just as freezing, dirty and bored as he was, with the added benefit (or was that liability?) of being drunk. Their singing certainly hadn't improved.

Still, misery loved company.

"Mach weiter!" he yelled, somewhat red-faced, over the chorus of voices as they neared the end of the final verse. Some of them trailed off with weary groans, but he ignored them. "_Wieder, wieder!" _

_ "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der welt-" _ they began again, but something was different this time. Their voices, already made wobbly by the _ schnapps, _ were clashing horribly.

"Was ist das?" someone interjected, and, one by one, they fell quiet. From somewhere on the other side of no man's land, the drone of bagpipes began to fill the air.

:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:

_O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! _

When Aziraphale heard voices join the soaring melody he couldn't help but grin. They drowned out the German soldiers' refrain, and even as he watched he could see men lifting their heads to listen. He hurried back down the line, adding his own voice to the rising chorus.

By the time he reached the West Yorkshire Regiment, they too had joined the Scots Guard in a cheerful rendition of _ Auld Lang Syne. _ To everyone's surprise the song ended to raucous applause and the opening lines of _ Oh, Tannenbaum _ from the Germans, who had apparently decided they'd had enough patriotism for one night. Aziraphale's feet faltered, and he found himself standing stock still, the words in an unfamiliar tongue filling his ears.

A cry of alarm from one of the lookouts made everyone start - he was pointing out towards the German lines. The trench suddenly burst into life as soldiers scrambled for the walls, some reaching for their guns out of sheer habit.

_ O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum! Dein kleid will mich was lehren,  
Die hoffnung und beständigkeit, gibt trost und kraft zu jeder zeit _

Aziraphale wasn't imagining it; the voices were getting _ closer. _ He couldn't help himself. He _ had _to see what was happening. Copying the way the others heaved themselves up against the dirt wall, he steeled himself and peeked over the edge. The sight that greeted him stole his breath away.

The German trench was dotted with Christmas trees twinkling with candles.

The soldiers were picking their way around their fallen comrades, crossing the snarled barbed wire that marked the edge of no man's land.

An officer had climbed up beside Aziraphale to see for himself. He took one look at the advancing Germans and swore under his breath.

"What the _ hell _ are they playing at?" He hissed.

"I think they wish to join us," Aziraphale informed him pleasantly. "Sir," he added, when the man turned to him with an expression of utter incredulity.

"Not _ them_," the officer said, pointing. "_Them!" _Aziraphale followed the direction of his finger, just in time to see the Scots Guard clambering up over the top of their trench.

The song ended, and the German soldiers hovered at the edge of no man's land, as if they were afraid to break whatever spell had fallen on the battlefield. Aziraphale's breath caught in his throat. This was a tenuous peace at best. Even the air felt brittle.

Then, hesitantly at first, the 18th Infantry Brigade began to climb over the top, joining the growing crowd. Vaguely, Aziraphale heard the officer barking at his men to stay put, but before he knew it he'd clambered up the slippery side of the trench and was wading through muddy snow among the crowd of infantrymen.

He couldn't call it a beautiful sight, exactly. The snow was flecked with brown blood and the near-frozen bodies of the fallen, the ground churned up by months of violence. But he still felt a flicker of hope as men worked together to carry the dead back to their respective sides, where they could be properly laid to rest.

His gaze snagged on an oddly familiar figure, dressed in the grey uniform of a German infantryman, bent low over the body of a fallen soldier. He looked up, dark glasses glinting, and Aziraphale's mouth dropped open.

"Guten abend, Engel." Crowley lifted his chin in greeting. "It's bloody cold, isn't it?"

"Crowley! What are you doing- oh." He folded his arms as a wide grin slithered its way onto Crowley's face. "_Deutschland Über Alles. _ That was _ you_, wasn't it?"

"To be honest, I don't know how much longer I could have kept it up," Crowley admitted. "Even the Germans were getting sick of hearing it. Still, it worked out alright, didn't it?" he added, gesturing around him at the crowd gathering in the snow.

"You don't get to take credit for all of this!" Aziraphale admonished him.

"I'm surprised you were behind the bagpipes." Crowley's pointed teeth glinted in the moonlight. "They're the devil's instrument, don't you know?"

:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:¦:

Once the fallen had been buried, the Generals convened in the middle of no man's land. They talked for several long minutes in low voices, their heads bent towards each other. Aziraphale and Crowley lurked a short way off, watching the proceedings. When the Generals finally nodded and solemnly shook hands, to a ragged cheer from the soldiers watching, Aziraphale let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding.

"A truce," he breathed, relief spreading over his face.

Crowley didn't respond. He had turned to the sea of churned mud, tangled wire and shrapnel that lay beyond the perimeter. The moon illuminated it in stark detail, giving it a ghostly appearance. The two of them stood side-by-side in silence, trying to take in the sheer scale of the destruction.

"Does it remind you of anything?" said Crowley eventually. Aziraphale shook his head, and he gave a mirthless smile. "I suppose it wouldn't. Hell."

"I've never been in such a hurry to finish a job," Aziraphale admitted. "It's almost worth getting discorporated, to make the journey back quicker."

"Hell of a lot of paperwork though."

"_Heaven _of a lot. Have you seen the amount of paperwork they make us fill out?"

"Oh _ please_," scoffed Crowley. "When have you heard anything described as 'bureaucratic heaven'?" They both chuckled, but their hearts weren't in it. "Busy up there, is it?"

"At the moment?" Aziraphale nodded. "Very. And…" his gaze slid downwards. "...Down there?"

"Not really. Too many brave and noble sacrifices to impact our workload."

"Ah, that's…" there was a pause. "Good. I suppose."

"The Dukes of Hell don't think so. They sent me out here to inspire cowardice and wrath and whatnot, but if you ask me, they're wasting their time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, that's not what this lot is all about, is it?" he turned back and indicated the mingling German, French and British soldiers with an elegant swoop of his hand.

The men were gathered in clusters of different coloured uniforms now, all talking at once, determined to break the language barriers between them with improvised sign language. Some were showing each other pictures of their families, or exchanging gifts; buttons from their coats for pieces of chocolate and figurines made from old cans. Aziraphale felt the cold horror recede a little, a spark of hope kindling in his chest. One day - perhaps _ too _ soon, but not tonight, at least - they would welcome each of these men into Heaven, where they could await their loved ones in peace, the waking terror of war nothing but a distant memory.

"The ones calling the shots, _ they're _the ones the Dukes should be slavering over," continued Crowley obliviously, breaking into his thoughts. "Sitting in their ivory towers, treating this like a game without consequences." His fingers drifted idly to a bloodstain on the grey wool of his sleeve. Aziraphale took in the sight with widening eyes, his faint cheer evaporating.

"What happened? Are you hurt?" He reached out, but the demon grimaced and flapped his hand at him.

"No, not me. Some stupid bugger was putting up a Christmas tree. I was trying to convince him to put horns on the angel when he took a French sniper bullet."

"Oh, Crowley!" said Aziraphale, aghast. Crowley shrugged. He didn't mention that the boy had had a narrow escape - _ miraculous, _ even. He'd wake up tomorrow in a field hospital tent minus an ear but with a permanent discharge from the war.

Instead, he gave a wry smile and plucked a bottle of Port and two cups from the air.  
"Take the edge off?" He wasn't talking about the cold. Aziraphale took the cups, though he tutted at the sight of them.

"_Tin _ cups?"

"People might wonder where we got the best crystal from." Crowley uncorked the bottle with a sideways smile. "Let's try to keep up appearances, shall we?" He poured them each a generous drink and raised his cup. "To…" he cast around for something he could toast.

"Peace?" Aziraphale suggested. Crowley made a face. "Christmas? Joy and goodwill to all mankind?"

"Don't push your luck. How about ...survival?"

"Very well. To survival." They tapped their cups together and took a long drink, the fortified wine warming their lips against the frosty air. Crowley finished his in one go, and resurfaced only to find Aziraphale had done the same, and was staring thoughtfully at the bottom of his cup.

"If you're looking for answers, you're going to need more Port," he said, leaning over to give the angel a refill.

Aziraphale pursed his lips. "You know I'm supposed to discorpo-" he eyed the crowd. "-_kill _ you."

"You'd ruin this lovely party."

"It would put a damper on things, wouldn't it." He gave a resigned smile. "Merry Christmas, you old serpent." The next part was a dance they'd learned the steps to long ago - Crowley made a show of rolling his eyes behind his tinted glasses, and Aziraphale pretended not to notice. They turned back to the gathering of soldiers; someone had found a battered football and two teams were hastily assembling.

"I hear the war may be over soon," said Aziraphale, swishing wine around his cup absently. Crowley paused, his own cup halfway to his lips.

He could have told Aziraphale that wasn't likely. He _ could _have told him the dreadful things he'd heard in Hell, the plans that had left him with a sick feeling in his stomach. Millions more would die before the war was likely to end, and he was certain Heaven knew it just as well as Hell did.

He opened his mouth, changed his mind, and snapped it shut again. _ Let the angel have this one _ , he told himself. Tomorrow they would go their separate ways, and before too long the battlefield would be reclaimed by death and shellfire.

But tonight, at least, there would be peace.

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_A/N: Yes, this is obviously a very romanticized version of events and may have already been done to death, but it was too good an opportunity to miss. It started out as a cutesy feel good kind of story but kind of took a dark turn. I guess angels (even fallen ones) don't come out the other side of WW1 unscathed._


End file.
